It recently came to my attention that there was an article from the Daily Caller in regards to Ella Baker Day which occurred on Thursday, April 13th, and featured speaker Donna Hylton.
For those who don’t know, Ella Baker Day is held at Manhattanville College annually, as well as Loyola University and Coastal Carolina University, to honor the late Ella Baker, who was a Civil Rights Era Activist. Ella Baker believed not only about freedom for African Americans, but everyone. At Manhattanville’s Ella Baker Day, a panel was held that included Yolanda Johnson-Peterkin, Shirley Leyro, James Gantt, and Donna Hylton.
The article spoke about speaker Donna Hylton. Donna Hylton was in jail for 27 years, and came to the college to talk about the problems with our prison system and solitary confinement as a means of “correction” instead of rehabilitating inmates. Donna Hylton did not bring up during her talk what she was in jail for, until an anonymous student asked why she left out the fact that she was a murderer. While I agree that Donna should have brought up what she was convicted for at the start of her talk, it wouldn’t have causes nearly as much of an uproar if she did, Donna did her time. Not only did she serve her time in prison, but she represents one of the few people who goes through the prison system, and comes out a better person – Isn’t that the point of the prison system? To rehabilitate and make the inmates able to reenter society a better person?
Yes, Donna Hylton had been involved in the kidnapping, murder, and torture, of a man that landed her in prison, as made more than clear in the article written by the Daily Caller.
Besides the point that the article wasn’t well articulated, wasn’t well written, and looked to mock the price of our school (using the keyword “fancypants college” should be a clear indicator of their negative image about private colleges), the article completely missed the point of Donna’s talk.
Donna Hylton is a victim of the system, and this article portrays her as an enemy of the free word, when, in actuality, her message is a positive for the student population. As a child, Donna was physically and sexually abused, being raped numerous times before being dragged out of her homeland of Jamaica and being brought to a foreign place. Once here, the sexual abuse continued, and she later became a teen mother. She was a victim of a terrible system put in place, and later on she went to jail. Now, she speaks as an activist, being promoted by the Women’s March and Eve Ensler, author of the play, “The Vagina Monologues” that our school puts on each year.
Yes, she went to jail for the murder and rape of a gay man, but that wasn’t the point of her conversation. Donna Hylton owns up to her crimes, she admits that she was involved, and doesn’t even remind people of the fact that her daughter’s life was at stake. She openly spoke about her crime when the Manhattanville Student raised the point of her crime, but her crime wasn’t the topic of conversation that day.
Donna was there to talk about solitary confinement, something that destroys people’s lives. Our prison system, as a whole, is a terrible system that leads to mental illness, introduces felons to drugs, and even leads some inmates to their death. While people in prison have committed crimes, sometimes very violent offenses, they are still people. The prison systems in the United States gets more money than our education system, even though it takes away many of the prisoners basic human rights, including the most important right cherished in the United States – the right to life.
Solitary confinement is the biggest issue within the prison system. Those who go into solitary confinement often develop mental illness’ that they never would have developed if they weren’t in solitary. The documentary, Solitary Nation, exemplifies these issues. In it, a prisoner develops major depression, attempts suicide by slitting his wrists, and instead of putting him into counseling they returned him to solitary confinement. After his second suicide attempt, they put him into the counseling section of the prison, where he progressed greatly. The therapist told the documentary creators that the inmate was making great strides, showed progress and remorse for his actions, and was going to be a great member of society if he kept up the progress. When the inmates three months in counseling were up, he was forced to go back into solitary confinement to complete his sentence. Within twenty four hours he attempted to take his life again.
These are the struggles Donna Hylton discussed and brought up at Ella Baker Day. She wasn’t “there to talk about how she was sad that she had a bad time in prison,” as the article and student in question states. She was there to talk about basic human rights. Also, the Psychology Today article quoted by the author of the article, leaves out the fact that Donna Hylton’s daughter’s life was at stake, leading her to the kidnapping of the man, and that she didn’t murder the man, she was just an accomplice. Yes, this crime is still heinous, but the author of the article, and student, conveniently leave these parts out. Donna has real life experience in the solitary confinement system, she was in prison for 27 years, and could talk on the subject better than any sociologist could have, though our sociology departments does the best job possible without having their own experience. The article states:
She mentioned graphic stories,” the student told The Daily Caller. “If you were not crying by the time she was done speaking, there’s something wrong with you.”
Well, this is because the experiences Donna, and other inmates suffer in solitary confinement are real, terrible, and emotionally moving. This is what you should be thinking about, their loss of rights, loss of hope, and the fact that society places pressures on most people who end up in prison. These pressures come from their lack of access to health care, counseling, education, and their intense exposure to racism, classism, and sexism in the American Culture.
Ella Baker day is a great campus event, and raises awareness to social problems many students, faculty, and community members don’t think about. I extend great kudos to Professor Strmic-Pawl for putting on such an eye opening event on our college campus. I believe it’s important for students to know these struggles, and learn about how they can fight back, and work to better these social problems. Our student body is portrayed in the article as a bunch of snooty and loose liberals, looking to jump on any causes bandwagon. This isn’t the case. Our student body is well educated thanks to our educators and faculty, and know the proper causes to engage with. The cause promoted by Ella Baker Day and Professor Strmic-Pawl are important, and I hope you don’t take this article to heart when reading it.
The author isn’t well informed, and seems to just be looking to bash the first expensive, private, “Fancypants College” he can. The article, as a whole, is offensive to the student body, sociology department, professor Strmic-Pawl, and the entirety of Manhattanville. If I’m a lose liberal for believing in a person’s right to life, that’s fine. I’ll take it.